AN ALPINE TOUR

(By Andreas Fleischmann, August 2004) 

Pinguicula leptoceras in habitat  

Here are some old photographs of an alpine tour which I made on the last week of august in 2004. My main aim was to botanise in the central European Alps, where the soil is neutral to acidic, because of the underlying intrusive rocks. This results in many endemic plants of high montane meadows in the main Alpine divide, which don't grow outside this range, on the calcareous soils of the northern and southern Alps. One of these central Alpine endemics is Pinguicula leptoceras (with only a few remote populations in the southern Alps on slightly calcareous soils, which escaped from the usual range).

The following photographs were made in Obergurgl, Tyrol, Austria, mainly in the Rotmoosache valley below the glacier “Gurgler Ferner”. It is in the Ötztal Alps (Ötztaler Alpen) on the Italian/Austrian border (where they found that old mummified Ötzi the Iceman).
 

You can well see the U-shaped glacial valley of Gurgler Ferner (which is the snow and ice-covered area in visible the 2nd photo) in these 2 views. The area on the bottom of this valley is an acidic seepage swamp, and entirely covered by a dense population of thousands of Pinguicula leptoceras!

The flowers of P. leptoceras are reminescent of P. vulgaris. However they are larger in size, and the 3 big white spots on the lower lip are characteristic in P. leptoceras as well :

Last but not least, P. leptoceras has a long narrow spur (origin of the species’ name!), whereas the spur of P. vulgaris is shorter and more wide. And both species are well separated by their ecological needs, too : P. leptoceras is a plant of the main Alpine divide, where it grows on neutral to acidic soils (except those few Italian populations further South, which break the rule ;)), where as P. vulgaris is usally confined to alkaline calcareous soils.

The rosette leaves of P. leptoceras are identical to those of P. vulgaris, but usually turn maroon red in full sun.

Some plants of P. leptoceras grew on the mountain sides of the valley, where snow water was seeping through. On these sites, they grew among taller grasses, accompanied with many orchids :

In the rubble at the base of the glacier, a few plants which are perfectly adapted to the rough conditions thrive well. Usually they are growing as small rosetted perennials or low cushions, to give less contact to wind, cold and snow. Many of them have huge flowers compared to the overall size of the plant. They bloom as soon as the snow cover melts, to increase the size that they get pollinated by the few insects living at these high altitudes. Almost all high alpine plants are pollinated by flies (in Europe as well as in Asia, America, Australia and New Zealand, interesting, isn’t it? ;))
 

The glacier Photo : A. Fleishmann August 2004	Androsace alpina, another member of the Primulaceae. (pygmy Drosera lovers will recognise the similarity of those flowers with flowers of Drosera androsacea ;)) Photo : A. Fleishmann August 2004
Ranunculus glacialis Photo : A. Fleishmann August 2004	Sempervivum Aeachnoideum Photo : A. Fleishmann   August 2004
Gentiana orbicularis Photo : A. Fleishmann August 2004	All of these plants pictured above did grow at nearly 3000 m a.s.l., on this ridge I'm standing on (called "Königsjoch"), which is the border between Austria and Italy. The snow that you can spot behind me is already Italian snow ;-).   Photo : A. Fleishmann August 2004
View of the glacier “Gurgler Ferner” from the opposite mountain top. Photo : A. Fleishmann August 2004	And this is how we did descend the glacier: on the plastic bags we used to collect plants for herbarium specimens. I didn’t collect any this day, as I wanted to bobsleigh down the glacier ;-) Quite risky, but a lot of fun as well! ;-) Photo : A. Fleishmann August 2004

On calcareous rock disseminations you can even find THE standard alpine plant : the Edelweiss (Leontopodium alpinum). Recent molecular analysis did show that the genus Leontopodium actually is part of the genus Gnaphalium, and therefore the correct name now should be Gnaphalium alpinum, the Alpine Cudweed (how boring that sounds! ;-)).

What makes this orchid hybrid so interesting is the positioning of the flower: In Gymnadenia, the flowers are resupinate (i.e. twisted, with the lower lip (labellum) pointing downwards), whereas the flowers of the other parent plant, Nigritella, are not resupinate (lower lip pointing upwards). And in the hybrid it is pointing.... sidewards!


Finally, an uber-trashy photograph of the rusty-leafed alpenrose, Rhododendron ferrugineum (Ericaceae, heath family), another plant endemic to silicate soils.
 

---------------July 2008 -------------------Bad news report ---------------July 2008 --------------
Hello,

A very disappointing update on this fantastic site where P. leptoceras grew:

I have just re-visited Obergurgl with my Pinguicula-nuts CP buddy Markus Welge ;). We went there on friday (which was right on the day 4 years after my first visit to this site in 2004). Apart from the fact that most of the plants we found this year have already finished flowering (all plant species that I have seen in full bloom in late july 2004 had now already past flowering and had set seed for this season), this area has suffered from dramatical changes by human interference!

Obergurgl turned into a touristic winter sports town, four (!) huge new luxury ski hotels have been built within the last 4 years only, two more of them are under construction now (to be finished right in time for ski season 2008 in november!). The small warped open chairlift I used to see the stone-pine forests from above has been replaced by a new shiny huge modern ski lift which carries hundereds of tourists on top of the surrounding mountains. And the stone-pine forest has been cleared for ski slopes (including some massive lampposts, so that you can downhill until midnight in brightest floodlight, of course!). Obergurgl turned into a new "ski paradise".
And this means the end of these Pinguicula populations! The huge carpest of lilac flowers in the Rotmoosache glacier valley that you can see on my photos above have now dissapeared, as a water reservoir has been digged into the hillside above the valley bottom where the P. leptoceras grew. As the water is now stored in this large reservoir, the seepage site on the valley bottom dried out. No more Pinguicula left there! (Well, except an estimated 200 plants growing at a few more moist spots, but that's peanuts compared to the ten thousands of plants I encountered at the same spot only four years ago!)

We found a few more Pinguicula growing in wet cavities (where the snow remains for a long time in spring. BTW, does any of the native English speakers in this forum know if there's a special term describing these habitats? There's a special vegetation growing in these "snow cavities", which are covered by snow much longer than the surrounding vegetation. In German they are called "Schneetälchen"). But in these cavities, the snow and melt water had gathered all leavings of the previous ski season: the Pinguicula there grew amoung loads of plastic rubbish, cans, bottles, etc.

Thus, another sad report about irretrievable habitat loss. And just remember that the biogeograpical region of the European Alps as a whole is protected as an "area of unspoiled nature"! Of course that does not mean anything as soon as some profit can be made.

Happy winter sports season 2008 in Obergurgl!

Resigned,

Andreas